Noticias

BB FlashBack News

August 2014: BB FlashBack 5 Arriving Soon

Blueberry Software will soon be launching the latest version of its best-selling screen recorder series - BB FlashBack 5 - which will come with a number of new editing features and big improvements to user experience.

New features will include the ability to record a video once and release it in multiple languages; a magnifier effect to enlarge parts of the movie, password protection for recordings you want to keep secure, and a new user interface.

January 2014: FaceBook Competition

Create a video using our free BB Flashback Express software - and the best entry gets a free copy of BB Flashback Pro! To enter, simply post the link to your movie on our Facebook page and let our followers decide on the winner by voting for their favourite.

The content of the movie can be anything - from a blog post to a tutorial or sales presentation. The only rule is that it needs to be created using BB Flashback Express.

March 2013: New Staff Join Blueberry

Mateusz Saniewski has joined Blueberry in the role of Graphic / Website Designer for the BB FlashBack range of products. Matt has a range of design skills, and expertise in Photoshop/Flash/Dreamweaver/Illustrator and HTML/CSS, which he'll be applying to our marketing literature, stationery, projects and products.

September 2012: BB FlashBack Version 4 Launched

Blueberry has launched BB FlashBack version 4, the eagerly anticipated upgrade of the company’s best-selling professional screen recorder.

BB FlashBack 4 combines outstanding performance with a host of fantastic new creative features, including fade transitions, an easy to use annotations ‘gallery’, blur tool, the ability to add notes to the movie at record-time, export to GIF, and much more.

Whether educating an audience, annotating a webcast, creating a tutorial, demonstrating a product, or making a screencast for friends or your social network, BB FlashBack 4 now comes with a number of new tools that simplify the creative workflow to help movie makers deliver engaging content – faster and easier than ever before!

What’s new in BB FlashBack 4:

Fade Transitions – Now you can add transition effects to join clips when creating your movie. Add them during editing, or let the software add them automatically when inserting a FlashBack movie or video file.

Gallery - Simplify the editing workflow by creating a gallery of in-movie annotations like textboxes, images, highlights etc. You can just drag objects in and out of the gallery to save them and add them to a movie. The gallery includes a range of annotations to get you started.

Blur Tool - Blur out sensitive details in a movie - great for creating movies that feature sensitive or personal data.

Record-time Notes - Make notes during recording and see them as textboxes in the movie. Just move the cursor to the top of the screen and start typing into the popup Notes window. Recording will auto-pause and restart when you’ve finished.

Export to GIF format - For easy embedding into Web pages.

Plus numerous other improvements have been made to the software to ensure BB FlashBack 4 remains the best professional screen recorder on the market for tutorial makers, demonstrators and educators.

David Francis, Project Manager for BB FlashBack, said: “The way we use our PCs has changed dramatically over the last few years, with users spending more time online connected to colleagues, clients, friends or family via their computer, and wanting to create content for their audience like a true pro.

“Factor in the range of hardware devices now available - including tablet and smartphones – and you have the basis of our thinking behind BB FlashBack 4: It’s designed to meet the needs of todays’ screen recorder users - from educators and trainers, to sales and marketing professionals, to video and social media devotees.

"Ultimately, we've worked hard to simplify the process of screen recording, and offer fantastic new cutting-edge features at outstanding value.

“We are confident BB FlashBack 4 will be well received by both professional and novice screen recorder users alike."

BB FlashBack is free to download on a 30-day trial. It can be installed on the same PC as BB FlashBack v3 without any risk, and is free to customers who have purchased BB FlashBack since 31st August 2012. Earlier purchasers can upgrade for only $99.

June 2012: New Staff Join Blueberry

Gareth Casey has joined Blueberry in the role of Software Tester and Technical Support for the BB FlashBack range of products. Gareth will also be providing undertaking a range of marketing tasks to improve our service to customers.

Gareth has been working as a senior tester at Rare on Xbox for 6 years, and will be transferring his games-based experience to software testing for Blueberry.

February 2012: New User Guides Produced

A number of BB FlashBack Help videos have been uploaded to our YouTube channel, which guide users through the basics of making movies with BB FlashBack.

All 20 videos will also be available from the Blueberry Software site shortly, together with new materials designed to help users quickly get into BB FlashBack movie-making.

The materials include a web-based user guide, a quick start guide, a how-to guide linked to demo movies, plus a comprehensive pdf user guide. The quick start can be downloaded here.

January 2012: BB FlashBack used to record genealogy tutorials

BB FlashBack has been used by Lowcountry Africana, an all-volunteer research project dedicated to African American genealogy in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, to record genealogy tutorials for their readers to view as part of its National Day of Listening.

Lowcountry Africana is an official national partner of the acclaimed oral history project StoryCorps, which celebrated the fourth annual National Day of Listening on Friday, November 25, 2011.

National Day of Listening involves Story Corps inviting all Americans to set aside an hour on the day after Thanksgiving to interview a family member, friend or community leader about their life story.

This year, Blueberry Software donated free copies of BB FlashBack to the project so that it could create tutorials for its readers showing how to record an interview with someone faraway using Google+.

Founding Director of Lowcountry Africana, Toni Carrier, said: "BB FlashBack is a perfect fit for the event, and we will be recommending it as a way to record and preserve family oral history from afar.

"We're thrilled with all of its capabilities!"

October 2011: BB FlashBack Is Ideal For Recording A Prezi

Are you looking for a screen-capture program capable of grabbing fast-moving images - for example to create packaged Prezi presentations? We have the answer: BB FlashBack screen recorder!

Up to now, Prezi users have been unable to capture the sweeping transitions that Prezi is celebrated for. However, we've found BB FlashBack is capable of recording both the transitions and audio so you can publish the Prezi as high quality online video.

If you're not familiar with the Prezi presentation tool, check out their website at http://prezi.com/.

The suitability of BB FlashBack for recording Prezis was first brought to our attention by one of our customers, who recently noted that our program was particularly good at recording Prezi presentations for publishing online. He reported that the Prezi user community had tried many other tools but none were as good at recording flash movies of Prezis.

We’ve since done our own testing, and we’ve produced a demo - http://vimeo.com/29306710 - which shows a Prezi recorded with our tool and republished to Vimeo.

For detailed instructions on how to create your own Prezi recording, see our solutions page - How To Record A Prezi.

July 2011: Blueberry Launches Version 3 Of Its Screen Recording Software

Blueberry Software has launched a major new version of its best-selling screen recording software - BB FlashBack 3.

BB FlashBack 3 has been designed to help screen recorder users create even more sophisticated and effective screencasts. Whether annotating a webcast, developing a polished tutorial, demonstrating a sales product, or creating a screencast for friends or your social network, BB FlashBack 3 helps movie makers deliver engaging content – faster and easier than ever before.

What’s new in BB FlashBack 3

New Recorder User Interface – a sleek, new user interface that places more features directly to hand, making it easier to work with in-movie objects like textboxes, images, highlights and so on.

Insert Arrow Tool – Call attention to events in the movie. The new Insert Arrow tool can create a limitless number of arrow styles by selecting from a combination of key properties.

Start and End Titles – Add start and end titles to your creative masterpiece for that finishing touch.

Insert Video Files - Add a video file to your project to add interest or clarify a point, and choose how it will look in your presentation.

Invisible Keystrokes – Display invisible keystrokes such as function keys, so that the viewer can see exactly what you did during recording.

Scheduled Recording – Particularly useful for recording webinars and other online events. Set BB FlashBack 3 to schedule a recording at a specific date and start/end time, or when a specific application or process begins.

Text Formatting – More control over text formatting in text boxes, giving you more choice over how your screen recording looks.

Export To Apple Devices – Export in a format compatible with Apple devices. Whether you want to view the movie on a Mac, iPhone or iPad, you can now ensure it works on your target Apple device.

Precision Sound Editing - comprehensive inbuilt sound editing, with tracks shown as waveforms, which can be selected and manipulated in the same way as movie footage. Now includes:

Pause Objects - create pauses in the movie in a more user-friendly way, by adding pause objects rather than by inserting frames – an intuitive change to the way things were done before, making it much easier to add a pause in the timeline.

Recording wizard - a step-by-step guide for beginners.

Highlight tool - to draw viewer’s attention to key sections of the screen.

David Francis, Project Manager for BB FlashBack, said: “BB FlashBack has always been a first-class screen recorder and we’re very proud of the changes we’ve made to BB FlashBack 3. This new version addresses the needs of todays’ screen movie makers - from sales and marketing pros to YouTube and social network devotees - who use images and video to tell stories, introduce new ideas, and troubleshoot problems quickly.

“We’ve improved the user interface and added a new arsenal of editing tools. As with any reboot of a classic, it’s worth taking the time to explore these new tools, as they’ve been designed to help users take screen movie production to the next level.

"Ultimately, we've worked hard to create an application that in the end simplifies the process of screen recording, and offers high-end features at outstanding value."

May 2011: BB FlashBack on Facebook

BB FlashBack screen recorder now has its own Facebook page.

As most of you probably have a Facebook account, please feel free to use our new social channel to get the latest news from Blueberry Software and feedback from other users of BB FlashBack. Do you have a comment to make about BB FlashBack? An issue you'd like answered, or something else you'd like to share with others? Become a Friend - "Like" our page, share it with your friends, post comments, etc.!

March 2011: Study published on Autism Spectrum Disorders which uses BB FlashBack

The University of Strathclyde has been researching the ability of adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders to multi-task, using BB FlashBack to record behaviour.

According to the National Autistic Society 500,000+ people in the UK are affected by an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and despite major advances in the understanding of the condition, addressing the needs of this group remains a problem for Education Authorities, the NHS and Social Services.

This new study used a modi?ed version of the Virtual Errands Task (VET) to investigate the ability of high-functioning adolescents with ASD to multi-task. For the VET, participants were given a list of errands to perform on a computer screen. When the task was up, their performance on the VET was recorded using BB FlashBack screen capture software, for later analysis.

February 2011: BB FlashBack As Cyber Forensics Tool

BB FlashBack screen recorder has been used in a novel new way by a technology lawyer in the USA.

Computer forensics is a demanding field, requiring a high level of rigor to ensure the correct procedures have been followed.

Commonly, a cyber investigation examines how a digital resource like an app, a hyperlink or a Web search box works.

It is the job of an investigator to record what he sees and hears in such a way that it can be used in court to show what the resource did at the time of the investigation.

Without a recording, valuable evidence can disappear. A Web page or a Facebook wall, for instance, may display one thing now and something different five minutes later.

So how can an investigator preserve a competent recording of what he sees and hears?

Benjamin Wright, a technology lawyer in the US, set out to devise a new and better way to record the work of a cyber-investigator – which could be a police detective who is tracking activity on the Web. Ben needed a tool that would capture a split-screen video record, showing both activity on a Web browser and simultaneous activity in a webcam. Furthermore, he needed the tool to create a final movie file that could easily be saved to a hard drive and transmitted as an email attachment.

After an extensive search for a tool that met his specifications, he found that BB FlashBack screen recorder presented a perfect way to make a permanent screencast record of his investigation - showing what appeared in his Web browser as he clicked and typed.

But Ben needed software that did more than just reliably capture a screencast. He needed software that captured a simultaneous webcam video of the user, and this is what really set BB FlashBack apart for him.

To authenticate the screen recording as the verifiable, legally-signed work and testimony of the investigator, Ben uses a split-screen to show a webcam image of himself (acting as investigator) observing and talking in real-time as the screencast was captured. The split-screen makes for compelling, easy-to-understand evidence and virtually constitutes a legal affidavit by the investigator.

After using BB FlashBack, Ben contacted Blueberry to share his novel application for the software.

“BB FlashBack performed beautifully for my purposes,” Ben concluded. “Excellent software - I congratulate you on the performance of your product!”

December 2010: Blueberry launches BB TestAssistant Version 3.0

Blueberry Software Ltd has released a major upgrade to its software testing tool for developers and testers - BB TestAssistant Version 3.0.

Designed to make accurate reporting of complex defects easy, BB TestAssistant is an innovative screen-recorder-based software testing tool that puts vital information at the fingertips of developers.

Key features in the new version include:

Log Import - automatically import log files during test and display them alongside the movie, allowing a developer to see what was happening on the desktop and in the application.

Simple API for Upload and Publishing - making it easy for developers to integrate BB TestAssistant 3.0 with bug-tracking systems.

Minimise Movie File Size - setup BB TestAssistant to make recordings at speeds as low as 1 frame per second.

David Francis, Project Manager for BB TestAssistant, said: “Software testing involves using a newly developed system or application under controlled conditions in an attempt to make things go wrong - in other words to see if things happen when they shouldn't or don't happen when they should.

"We've worked hard to create an application that simplifies the process of reporting defects, and offers outstanding value with high-end features at a low price.

“BB TestAssistant is easy to use and flexible enough to be incorporated into existing test protocols. Testers need no special training or skills to use it.

“We've listened to feedback, and version 3.0 has an array of must-have and sought-after features that we are confident will appeal to professional developers and testers."

Software testing usually involves software testers working to agreed-upon standards and following set procedures in order to satisfy rigorous quality assurance protocols, as a bug found after releasing the software can be both expensive to rectify, damaging to the reputation of the developer and raise security implications for the customer.

David said: “Software testing should always be a vital part of the software development process and its value should never be under-estimated. However, organisations can vary considerably in how they assign responsibility for QA and testing. We are seeing a continuing trend for companies of all sizes to outsource testing, and this can increase the likelihood of communications problems - exactly the kind of problem BB TestAssistant has been designed to combat.

“Blueberry’s BB TestAssistant has been designed to make it easy for QA staff, wherever they may be, to show defects instead of trying to describe them. A user simply clicks ‘Record’, step through a wizard, and the test is being recorded. When a bug is found, the user can save the recording or add a note. There's also the option to automatically create a default with the recording attached, on JIRA and TRAC bug tracking systems.”

Reviewing the recording is easy for the developer, thanks to a user interface that lets them get straight to the points of interest. If log files or the Windows event log are imported, they can be seen side-by-side with the movie.

BB TestAssistant is free to download as a 30-day trial. Find out more here.

Sept 2010: BB FlashBack Screen Recorder Is Ideal For Education

Hi,

I wanted to share my thoughts on BB FlashBack Screen Recorder.

I trialled your product along with what I thought were the market leaders (Camtasia and Captivate).

Firstly, on a brand new, high spec lap top, BB was the only one which would actually work without the need to disable hardware acceleration (not an easy task in Windows 7).

Captivate and Camtasia uninstalled from computer: 3 - 0 and game over.

I was out of school on Monday and Tuesday on a course and hate leaving coverwork as maths is usually covered by someone with little confidence so all the work left has to be easy (and often pointless).

I recorded 3 lessons to be played by cover staff, not expecting much at all.

Shock! Students loved it! On my return today, the quality of learning was exceptional.

They had grasped all the new concepts and thanked me for the lesson - bizarre!

Thank you so much for this fantastic product (and the educational discount) which although paid for by myself, was worth every penny.

I'm booked in to demonstrate the videos to curriculum leaders across the city, just on word of mouth.

This should lead to further purchases from you hopefully.

I cannot praise this product highly enough.

Bob Jackson

Maths Advanced skills teacher and AQA assistant principal examiner

Sydney Smith School

Hull

UK

May 2010: BB FlashBack Survey Contestant Wins iPod Prize

Congratulations to Claudia Álvarez from Guatemala, who has won an iPod Touch in Blueberry's prize draw for entering the BB FlashBack online survey in April!

The survey was launched to find out what trial users of BB FlashBack Professional really thought of the product.

"Wooo hoo!" Claudia said on hearing the news. "I'm very excited for winning the iPod. It was awesome to receive such good news. BB FlashBack is a great product!"

April 2010: BB FlashBack YouTube Channel

Have you made a screen recording using BB FlashBack that you'd like to share with the rest of the world? Why not visit our YouTube channel - we'd love to see your videos!

Or prehaps you'd like to see other people's podcasts? A comment to make about BB FlashBack? An issue you'd like answered, or knowledge you'd like to share with others? Subscribe to our YouTube Channel to become part of our growing community of BBFlashBack users...

April 2010: BB FlashBack Great For Low Spec Machines

The head of a school’s IT department has found that BB FlashBack Express is a very quick and productive tool for the needs of his classroom.

Over recent months, Richard Finnigan, Head of ICT at St Johns School in Northwood, has been developing a number of approaches to demonstrating software to his pupils, including the use of screen recorders. During his research he discovered that BB FlashBack Express is great for use on low spec machines.

Richard was using PCs running on an Intel Pentium 2.8HGz processor with 512MB Ram in his classroom.

He said: “With ScreenCorder (Matchware) the mouse clicks weren’t working properly and it wouldn’t capture drag and drop, Camtasia also had these problems and so too did CamStudio – which recorded the sound with a lag.”

However, he encountered no such problems when using BB FlashBack Express, which has opened up new options for using screen recording in his teaching.

He said: “I can record a software demonstration and if the children didn’t understand the procedures, they can simply look up the recording. I can point them to the recording without needing to re-demonstrate the software. I can also use recordings for extension work, differentiated work and cover work.

“From an educational point of view it’s great that the children can study and interact with the recording, pausing at parts of the demonstration that they didn’t understand.

“It certainly helps my students complete their tasks.”

March 2010: Best Free Screen Recorder

BB FlashBack Express has received so much positive feedback from users in an independent review that it is now considered one of the best free screen recorders around.

Comments made by users on the techsupportalert.com website say it is the best free screen recorder available, after testing other free offerings, including Jing, Wink and CamStudio.

Features which make BB FlashBack Express stand out from the others listed in the review include high quality movies without affecting PC performance, record and display of keystrokes, small size of the video capture, and the range of export formats.

The other options that put it ahead of comparable screen recorders were said to include:

Feb 2010: Online Survey Launched

Blueberry has launched an online survey to find out what trial users of BB FlashBack Professional really think of the product, and how Blueberry can we make it their first choice of screen recorder.

Managing director, Martin Green said: "As developers of BB FlashBack Screen Recorders, we are passionate about the quality of our products and in making sure they address the changing needs of our customers - which is why the products are regularly updated, and new versions with additional features are released frequently.

"Right now, we’re planning our development activity for 2010, and its people who've downloaded the trial version of BB FlashBack Pro who we want to talk to, so we can identify additional features that they'd like to see in BB FlashBack Professional.

"Rather than guess, we decided to ask our customers directly."

The online survey is open to anyone who has downloaded a trial version of BB FlashBack Professional.

If you’d like to take part in the survey, download the BB FlashBack Professional trial here.

Oct 2009: Product update – BB FlashBack 2.6.5

Our latest update to BB FlashBack, version 2.6.5, is now available for download. Changes include improvements to FLV scaling and export, and detection of sound sync problems during recording. To start using version 2.6.5 right away, download the latest installer from our website or run the check from updates wizard in your existing installation.

July 2009: Screen Recorder Range Extended

Blueberry Software has extended its range of screen recorders by adding a new mid-range product, at the same time making BB FlashBack Express FREE to download and use.

The new BB FlashBack range is designed to meet the practical needs of most screen recorder users; the blogger who wants to post a quick screencast; the teacher or trainer who wants to ‘show and tell’, and the professional Web or PC-based movie-maker who wants to demonstrate an application or service in a business or commercial context.

All the products in the new line-up from Blueberry include simple one-click uploading of movies to YouTube, Blip.tv and Revver.

June 2009: Product update – BB FlashBack Express Is Now Free

BB FlashBack Express - previously sold for $39 in over 170 countries around the world – is now absolutely FREE to download and use.

The free screen recorder comes with a brand new feature - simple one-click uploading of movies to YouTube, Blip.tv and Revver. Which means publishing your screencasts couldn’t be any easier.

And for anyone who is wondering - this is not an earlier version of BB FlashBack Express – it’s the latest release by Blueberry, with a few tweaks to make it an even bigger hit with users.

So why make such a popular product free? In the words of Martin Green, CEO of Blueberry Software: “We hope BB FlashBack Express will impress first-time users, who will then want to experiment with our more fully-featured screen recorder products - BB FlashBack Standard and BB FlashBack Professional - and hopefully go on to purchase them."

BB FlashBack Express is easily upgradable to either the Standard or Professional versions via the program menu.

Mar 2009: Japanese Version of BB FlashBack Screen Recorder Released

Blueberry Software has announced the release of a Japanese version of BB FlashBack, its best-selling professional screen recorder and movie production tool.

BB FlashBack is already sold in over 170 countries around the world. The localization of BB FlashBack for the Japanese market will enable Japanese speaking users to work more intuitively to create compelling videos.

“Our range of screen recorders continues to attract a lot of attention from all regions around the world, as nothing can beat the recording engine of BB FlashBack.

“It’s always been popular in English and now, thanks to the exceptional work by our translation team in Japan, BB FlashBack is ready for the big Japanese market for software.”

Further product localization is in progress for the German market, and more territories are planned before the end of the year.

Dec 2008: Hospital Staff Training Excels With BB FlashBack

Hospital staff in North Carolina are being trained in the use of specialised medical software applications using BB FlashBack screen recorder.

Gabriel Wiseman, responsible for staff development at Broughton Mental Hospital in Morganton, runs a number of classes in the use of software applications – which include CPR, Computer Competencies for Registered Nurses, Client Movement, NCI, Lab Hex laboratory information system, Introduction to Computers, Excel, Word, Power Point, Access – as well as additional courses on computer usage and other application related courses.

His perennial problem has been the sheer number of classes’ involved, which meant training was taking a long time, forcing staff to wait for in line to learn the skills they needed to perform their jobs.

What was needed was a way to streamline the hospital’s training courses. Since most of the training was computer-related, a solution presented itself to Gabriel when he searched online for a training tool - and discovered screen recorders.

After trying a number of different screen recorders, Gabriel downloaded the trial version of BB FlashBack, and realised it was exactly what he needed to run his staff development courses efficiently.

“After reviewing many others products, we all agreed that BB FlashBack gave the best bang for the buck,” Gabriel said. “In fact, everyone that I showed BB FlashBack to agreed that we needed this software; it would be an invaluable asset.”

“Broughton Hospital is now using BB FlashBack to provide online video tutorials to assist staff with everything from creating a word document to using our Human Resources web tools to change banking information.”

Gabriel went on to say: “BB FlashBack can make a cumbersome laboratory requisition system much easier to understand, with short video tutorials walking the nurse through each step, one at a time.

“BB FlashBack has also improved the quality of work and reduced errors, which will allow us to provide safer and more effective treatment to people in the future.

“In fact, there are no limits to what we can do with this software to assist staff in learning new skills!”

Nov 2008 - Blueberry Celebrates Regional Business Award

Blueberry was honoured in the ‘Best Innovative Product Award’ category and presented a certificate for its BB Flashback 2.0 software – a technology which it has licensed around the world.

Mike Musson, ICT Cluster Manager for the Award, said: “This year we've seen the highest standard of award entries yet and competition has been incredibly tough. The judging process has been rigorous and the panel faced a major challenge in deciding the final winners due to the sheer quality, innovation and excellent service provided by all the finalists. The awards are testament to the quality and diversity among technology companies in the West Midlands region.”

The ICT Excellence Awards were presented at the evening Awards event following the Annual ICT Cluster Conference on November 20th 2008.

Oct 2008 - Blueberry Shortlisted for Best Innovative Product Award

Blueberry Software Ltd has been shortlisted for Best Innovative Product in the Fourth Annual ICT Excellence Awards 2008.

The ICT Excellence Awards were originally designed to recognise and showcase the talents of West Midlands ICT businesses.

Now in their fourth year, the Awards are open to all UK organisations and are designed to recognise and reward the best and brightest SME technology companies in the West Midlands.

Martin Green, M.D. of Blueberry Software, said: “We’re very pleased to have been shortlisted for this prestigious award. It recognises the enormous achievement of our company in developing a state-of-the-art product which has been so successful that it now sells around the world, despite fierce competition from a much larger, American-based company.”

The product short-listed for Best Innovative Product is BB FlashBack 2.0 - a state-of-the-art desktop screen recorder which allows a demonstrator to record the screen of their computer whilst carrying out a task, allowing ‘anytime-anywhere-learning’ to take place.

BB FlashBack 2.0 has been developed by Blueberry over eight years, and the new version was released in April, 2008.

The ICT Excellence Award for ‘Best Innovative Product’ will be presented to the winner In November at the National Motorcycle Museum, Bickenhill, Birmingham in a traditional ‘Oscar’ style ceremony.

June 2008 - BB FlashBack Tutorials Used In Computer Games Industry

BB FlashBack screen recorder is proving invaluable in creating tutorials showing how to make game-ready content.

Computer game design is a complex process involving close collaboration between developers and artists, who use a range of software to create the virtual game world.

Objects within the game are generally comprised of polygons, which vary in number depending on how much detail is required. Once created, these 3-D objects have to be rendered, animated and placed within a scene.

Arteria3d, based in the UK, supplies the needs of the independent gaming community for ready-made 3-D media - and uses BB FlashBack screen recorder to create training videos on how to use the specialised applications involved in designing the 3-D game media.

According to Steve Finney, founder and owner of Arteria3d.com, there is a huge community worldwide of budding game developers using a multitude of game engines to produce their own computer games, some of which have gone on to become commercial successes.

The problem that many of these small companies suffer from is that whilst they have excellent programming skills, they usually have inadequate art resources, and to employ an artist to create 3-D media can be very costly.

In addition, in areas such as sound production and music, smaller companies have difficulty accessing commercial quality music and sound atmospheres.

This is where arteria3d saw a gap - producing a range of media for this niche independent market.

Steve Finney said: “Whilst there are quite a few 3-D media suppliers, most don’t cater for the specific needs of the independent game companies who need media for their productions.

“I realised that with my sound recording and art background, I could fill a need in the market by starting a company producing game-ready content.”

Since its formation, Arteria3d has expanded to provide renderwork and movies for games, as well as commercial quality music and sound atmospheres for use in games, education, simulations and movies.

An important part of Arteria3d is its training video area. “Many people would email me asking me how I made my 3-D media,” Steve said. “They wanted to know what programs I used to create it. I then realised it would be a great idea to produce some videos showing people how to make various 3-D buildings, and how specifically to use the various 3-D applications I used to create these assets.

“The only problem was how to create the tutorials,” Steve said, “and the search for a suitable program proved a nightmare.

“I needed a video screen recording program that gave me good, solid frame rates, with fluid sound quality. My experiences with Camtasia where not very good, and the other program I tested - Fraps ( a Windows application for real-time video capture and benchmarking) - only allowed screen recording in one open window at a time, so making it impossible to record my videos properly when working in a 3-D application with multiple viewpoints.”

“The minute I did my first test with FlashBack I new I had to have it,” Steve said. “I love the way in which FlashBack allows me to select the area to render…and its controls are superb. I always found Camtasia's version a little frustrating to use, whereas FlashBack allows for accurate screen area selection.

“In addition, being able to assign a hotkey to start and stop recording is very useful, allowing me to work intuitively. For me, the most important quality of FlashBack is that it allows me to get on with the job in hand, rather than worrying about issues within the program. It’s completely intuitive. FlashBack allows me to get on with my job, without having to learn the intricacies of the program.

“Stability is another important requirement for me. I’ve used FlashBack to shoot almost a days’ worth of training kit footage without it breaking once. This level of reliability is incredible!”

Steve added: “As well as this, I use FlashBack's superb Flash exporter to export real time movies of my animated characters that people can see from the web page. For people purchasing animated characters, a single picture isn’t good enough - they want to see a small movie showing how the character animates.

“I was truly amazed by the Flash exporter, which keeps files sizes to a minimum, whilst retaining quality. When I’ve used Flash exporters in the past, the quality is never very good. What’s more, FlashBack also provides all the necessary code so that I can simply paste it into my web page.

The whole process of exporting to Flash, and implementing in my web page, takes seconds!”

Steve finished by saying: “Since using FlashBack, the video series has proved so popular that I now intend to create a library archive of training videos over time, showing people how to make all kinds of 3-D objects using a range of applications.”

April 2008 - BB FlashBack 2.0 Launched

Blueberry Software's big release of BB FlashBack 2.0 screen recorder is an impressive combination of sought-after features and brand new technology.

"The release of Version 2.0 represents an important milestone for BB FlashBack in the product’s 5-year history," said Martin Green, MD of Blueberry Software. “We’ve extended functionality by adding a number of requested features, such as webcam and precision sound editing tools, whilst further simplifying the product’s ease of use. It is now more intuitive, giving it mass appeal to all users looking to create polished online tutorials, presentations or demonstration movies - or just screencasts.”

The software is able to output to all major movie formats, giving users more choice when creating and publishing high quality content. The use of compression techniques makes it possible to make movies at high frame rates whilst keeping file sizes small. The result is always slick to look at, even if the user has no programming or multimedia expertise.

BB FlashBack 2.0 records exactly what is done on a computer screen, what a user says, and how they interact with any Windows-based application or website.

The new picture-in-picture feature allows “talking head” presentations, where a video of a trainer can be shown talking the viewer through actions as they are performed on screen.

Multiple tracks of sound, music and commentary can be added. Sound tracks can be selected and manipulated in the same way as movie footage. Any portion of movie audio can be selected, cut, copied, pasted or dragged and dropped into new positions. Volume control is also provided, along with the ability to edit multiple soundtracks at once.

Key actions and areas of the screen can be emphasised by adding 'pan' and 'zoom' effects to your presentation for that professional finish.

Interactive Action Buttons are another welcome addition to the tools menu, allowing end-viewers of your movie to jump to any part of the presentation – or even open web pages. The Action Buttons can be set to display any desired information and perform a pre-programmed action on clicking.

The Highlight tool is a further new development, which allows transparent panels of colour to be positioned over selected areas of the movie to draw viewer’s attention to key sections of the screen.

For beginners, there is a helpful Recording Wizard, which gives the user a step-by-step guide to configuring recording options.

Once the interactive content has been edited, individuals can share it online in all popular streaming media formats, including Flash, AVI or WMV, as well as export to PPT or standalone .EXE files, for portable media players and CD or DVD.

Martin Green said: "Since the launch of Version 1.0 back in 2003, the range of applications for screen recorder based movies has grown enormously – from enhancing training, tutorials, manuals and websites, to multimedia training and presentations, teaching computer literacy or just creating screencasts for sharing on YouTube and Myspace.

“We’re pleased that the product has also earned a Microsoft 'Designed for Windows XP' certificate, so letting customers know that BB FlashBack has met standards of operating system compatibility, and will deliver a guaranteed level of quality and integration with Windows XP. In addition, BB FlashBack 2.0 is also Windows Vista compatible. It works in all Vista graphics modes and has an MS signed device driver for high performance recording.”

Blueberry Software is offering free upgrades of BB FlashBack 2.0 to all users who bought version 1.5 in the last 30 days prior to the release date of 2.0 (i.e. purchases made after March 1st, 2008), as well as free upgrades for anyone subscribing to the company’s Premium Support package.

For users who own an earlier version of BB FlashBack, purchased before March 1st, 2008, the price to upgrade to the new version is only $99 USD (usual price $225 USD).

For existing users of Blueberry’s entry-level screen recorder, BB FlashBack Express 1.5, there is a free upgrade available to the latest version of BB FlashBack Express 2.0.

Aberdeen University has been researching the ability of adolescents with Asperger Syndrome to multi-task, using BB FlashBack to record behaviour for later analysis.

A simple thing like making a cup of tea takes planning and organising, and where the pre-frontal cortex is damaged (such as in an autistic disorder) the ability to perform different activities concurrently can be seriously affected.

According to the National Autistic Society 500,000 people in the UK are affected by an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and despite major advances in the understanding of the condition, addressing the needs of this group remains a problem for Education Authorities, the NHS and Social Services.

Individuals with Asperger Syndrome pose particular difficulties because, like all people with ASDs, they are characterised by deficits in communication and socialisation and have restricted interests or repetitive behaviours.

Investigating this condition in the real world is naturally difficult. However, studies conducted in virtual environments provide a good solution by offering experimental control and a safe non-threatening environment for the participants, whilst still making real time demands on them.

Dr. Gnanathusharan Rajendran and his colleagues at the University of Edinburgh proposed using an adapted virtual environment called the 'Virtual Errands Test' to measure the multi-tasking performance of AS sufferers by watching them complete on-screen tasks to a set time limit.

The Virtual Errands Test (VET) involved giving volunteers tasks to do on a PC screen and recording the results for later analysis. The VET task involved scrolling through an office building with numbered rooms on three floors, performing office-based tasks such as “make a phone call in Room T1”.

If participants attempted the sequence of errands in list order, then the inefficient route meant they ran out of time before completing all the tasks. Performance was then scored by the number of errands successfully completed within the time-limit. The study predicted that individuals with autism would complete fewer errands than control participants because of their impaired ability to multi-task.

Dr. Rajendran said: “This kind of research is often done outside the laboratory, for example in schools, and without the use of screen capture software, we would have had to consider recording the onscreen events using a camera, video recorder and projector.”

“We discovered the superior alternative of using screen recorders by accident, and were given a copy of BB FlashBack by Blueberry once we explained to the company what we were trying to do.

“Now, it is a matter of un-intrusively running the program in the background and letting the participants work normally without being disturbed by the experimenter – a factor that can possibly affect results.

“Once the recordings have been made, it is a simple matter of burning the movie to CD and sending it to colleagues for further analysis.

“In my view, screen capture is a powerful tool in computer-screen based research, with the potential to be used in many future research applications of this nature.”

The initial findings of the report, entitled, “Investigating multi-tasking in Asperger syndrome using the Virtual Errands Task”, were presented at the British Psychological Society's Annual Developmental Conference in Plymouth at the end of August, 2007.

June 2007 - Medical Documentation System Uses BB FlashBack

Blueberry FlashBack screen recorder is to be used to create audio-visual demonstrations of an open source medical record system which will be used for clinical sites throughout the developing world.

OpenMRS, a non-profit open source medical record system developed for use in Africa and other third-world countries, will utilise Flash-based user-documentation, created using Blueberry FlashBack screen recorder.

Paediatrician, Paul Biondich, who initially contacted Blueberry regarding the use of BB FlashBack, said: "OpenMRS is a freely available medical record system, developed with the express intent of facilitating the care of HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria within developing countries. OpenMRS is based on the principle that information should be easy to store, summarise and analyse. At its core is a concept dictionary which stores all diagnosis, tests, procedures, drugs and other general questions and potential answers.

"When we contacted Blueberry, we were looking to provide easy-to-assimilate documentation for the system and found BB FlashBack screen recorder to be ideal for creating simple demonstrations of the system."

OpenMRS is a common framework on which medical information systems can easily be built. The application is not dependent on the types of medical information being collected, or on particular data collection forms, and so can be customised for different uses.

Because OpenMRS is a charitable project, Blueberry donated free site licences of the screen recorder to the venture, allowing the developers to create the documentation.

Dr Biondich said: "There are over 40 million people infected with or dying from HIV/AIDS in the world - most of them in developing countries. Prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS on this scale requires efficient information management, which is critical as HIV/AIDS care must increasingly be entrusted to less skilled providers.

"Whether for lack of time, developers, or money, most HIV/AIDS programs in developing countries manage their information with simple spreadsheets or small, poorly designed databases, if anything at all. To help them, we need to find a way not only to improve management tools, but also to reduce unnecessary, duplicative efforts. We believe OpenMRS is the right direction to go to help achieve these aims."

May 2007 - BB FlashBack SDK To Aid In Child Porn Detection

The China Grove Police Department in North Carolina, USA, is using BB FlashBack SDK to develop an evidence logging application for use in anti-child porn operations by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

The SDK will be used to develop a screen recording/IP traffic logging application, integrated into a suite of law enforcement tools, for use by the police department to aid undercover online investigations.

Roger Hosey, a reserve police officer with previous experience as a network administrator, first realised a need for a high-end, yet easy-to-use screen recorder, when he was attending an online investigations course taught by the North Carolina Computer Crime Unit. He observed that investigators were using off-the-shelf tools designed for general recording, which were unnecessarily complex for their needs, leading to confusion amongst some of the less experienced officers. In addition, as a result of tight budgets, many agencies were using the very cumbersome, but free, Windows media encoder for screen recording.

Roger said: “No standard toolset exists for capturing and maintaining online evidence. Because of this, Investigators rely on general purpose applications, which were not designed as law enforcement tools, but as general network management and desktop productivity applications.

“The lack of integration between tools can make maintaining and preparing evidence and tedious and time consuming task. Furthermore, lack of standardisation of tools can create problems for officers attempting to share data in a multi-jurisdictional case.”

Roger’s goal was to develop an integrated suite of freely available tools for sworn law enforcement officers to use in gathering, organising, researching, and presenting digital evidence in cases regarding the online exploitation of children. The core of the application would be the intuitive screen recording/IP traffic logging application.

Blueberry donated a free SDK licence for the application’s development.

Roger said: “A very gracious company donated an SDK license for a packet capture/traffic analysis component. With Blueberry’s donation as well, I should be able provide officers with an indispensable tool in the battle against the exploitation of children.”

Roger went on to describe the application he had in mind: “Once completed, the application will assist law enforcement officers in conducting undercover online investigations of child predators. The application will offer the ability, via the FlashBack SDK, for officers to record and log all chat and online interactions with the predators into evidence. In addition, the application will contain a system for case documentation and for maintaining the integrity of undercover identities. Finally, Integrated IP logging & traffic analysis will help officers identify the IP address and Internet Service Provider used by the offender.

“This information will be used, with a court issued subpoena, to obtain the subscriber information from the ISP. Once enough evidence is obtained, the officer can burn it to a disc and present it to a judicial official to obtain search and/or arrest warrants.”

In closing, Roger said: “In the battle against internet predators, screen recordings are an indispensable piece of evidence.

"When I began searching for a solution to provide this vital functionality to my application I focused on open-source offerings. After weeks of drudging through sparsely documented, feature limited, and unsupported code I was exasperated.

“As I evaluated professional developed components the answer to my problem became immediately apparent. From the moment I touched it, the Blueberry Flashback SDK has consistently exceeded my expectations. The components are well designed and intuitive. What few questions I did have were quickly resolved by referencing the included sample applications or the comprehensive, concise documentation. Within an hour I was able to add a working prototype to my application.”

Ternion Corporation in Alabama, USA, is Blueberry’s latest high profile convert to BB FlashBack Screen Recorder - using it to demonstrate state-of-the-art computer-based simulation software that is used mainly in military applications.

BB Flashback Screen Recorder came to the attention of Brad Spearing, President of Ternion Corporation, whilst he was evaluating a range of commercial screen recorder programs to see which would be most appropriate for creating a demo of their flagship simulation product called FLAMES (FLexible Analysis Modeling and Exercise System). The simulation was that of an airplane being shot down by a missile.

"I needed a program that could play the simulation like a movie," Brad explained. "It's key for us to be able to do this. One leading program we looked at primarily captured only still shots, so we were losing a lot of the action, such as animation in PowerPoint slides and 3D simulation visualization - making it useless for our purposes. The program also could not keep audio synchronized with video."

Then he tried BB Flashback Screen Recorder, which recorded everything he did and played continuously like a movie, with full audio and video synchronization. "Unlike the other programs we'd evaluated, BB Flashback has a great online help section that clearly addressed the technical issues we’d encountered with competing software, and gave directions on how to make BB Flashback specific to our requirement. It was all very simple and direct. It’s a tremendous product.

“If the competing software is a 5, then BB Flashback is a 20. The trial has made me confident in recommending it for use by anyone in the market for a screen recorder.”

Jan 2007: Product Update – BB FlashBack 1.5.4

BB FlashBack version 1.5.4 has been released following further product improvements and the implementation of new features. The most significant of these is the implementation of AVI 2.0 exporting, for AVI files larger than 2Gb; an option to recompress MP3 sounds, so avoiding clicks caused by editing operations; the ability to insert unsupported sound formats (i.e. other than mp3 or wav); a resynchronise sound feature to fix audio-video sync problems; and improved recovery of movies that have been unexpectedly terminated during recording. The update for BB FlashBack version 1.5.4 is now available for download.

Dec 2006: Blueberry Releases BB FlashBack SDK 2.0

Blueberry Software has released the latest version of its screen recording software development kit, BB FlashBack SDK.

BB FlashBack SDK 2.0 offers developers and software publishers an easy way to incorporate screen recording, movie playback and editing features into their applications, using plug-in ActiveX controls.

SDK 2.0 is based on the high-performance recording engine used in Blueberry's award-winning BB FlashBack screen recorder – a product which has been acknowledged for its performance level, its intuitive interface, and its sheer ease of use.

Three versions of SDK 2.0 are available: Basic, which allows the recording and playback of BB FlashBack movies; Professional, which adds movie editing and sound support; and Advanced, which has all the features of the BB FlashBack product. These include extensive editing functions that allow the user to add text effects, edit mouse movements, change the movie speed and add sound. The screen recordings can be exported to multimedia formats such as Flash, AVI, WMV or EXE for use on a CD-ROM.

SDK 2.0 is compatible with all major development environments, including Delphi, .NET and Visual Studio.

Applications include:

Usability testing - create custom tools to record user interaction.

Web conferencing - to allow recording of presentations over the Internet.

In Call Centres - to help give operators feedback on their use of programs.

In support systems - integrate recording of user actions to help debug programs.

Our latest update to BB FlashBack, version 1.5, is now available for download. This is another completely free update, including improved support for multi monitor systems, better file size compression for movies, and the ability to import basic AVI files back into FlashBack (FBR) movies.

Over the a period of two weeks the donation coder review team and their keenest forum members undertook a collective and detailed review to find the leading screen-casting software products from those available on the market. After examining a total of ten different applications BB FlashBack was awarded a "best in class" title.

The final report concluded: "BB FlashBack is a real head turner. This relative newcomer to the field is extremely capable, and has some tricks up its sleeves that we loved, which the other companies would do well to copy."

Jun 2005: Product update – BB FlashBack 1.4.5

New features include a recording toolbar for beginner level users, a batch movie export tool and improved navigation in the Player. Also in 1.4.5 Flash files now support streaming: movies exported to Flash format in this version or later will now automatically stream to your viewers when placed online.

Along with the new features technical improvements have been made to recording in a terminal services session, on a dual monitor setup or machines using older video cards. The full list of changes can be seen here.

We'd like to thank everyone who's sent us in feature suggestions and bug reports. It's this that lets us evolve our software, so please always feel free to get in touch with feedback.

To download the update simply run BB FlashBack and select "check for updates" from your recorder menu.

Apr 2005: BB FlashBack Awarded Listing on the Great Software List

BB FlashBack has now become listed on the great software list - a directory of the highest quality software products from every field of software. Awarding a listing in the Multimedia category, the list reviewer said: "While BB FlashBack is easy to describe, it's difficult to imagine a competing product coming near to its performance level, its intuitive interface, and its sheer ease of use."